July 20 – The Atlantic Wolffish-Anitfreeze Included – Atlantic wolffish are voracious predators, feeding on mollusks, crustaceans, and echinoderms (think urchins and sea stars). So voracious, in fact, that they serve as keystone species in North Atlantic food webs because they help limit populations of sea urchins and green crabs. Fish Feature, cross-post by Talking Fish. July…

Federal fishery managers rolled the dice on the New England cod fishery on Monday, once again. It is hard to escape the premonition that they fell well short of their responsibility. We think catch levels were set too high, too little was done to reduce the growing cod catches of recreational fishermen, and nothing was done to balance fishermen’s economic and social pain by directing the small allocation of Gulf of Maine cod toward coastal fishing boats.

This week’s posts on TalkingFish.org: CLF requests federal fisheries disaster relief for Gulf of Maine cod fishermen; an interview with Portsmouth chef Evan Mallett, and a weekly roundup of fish stories in the news.

It’s been widely reported that at its February meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to ask the National Marine Fisheries Service to take emergency action on Gulf of Maine cod for the 2012 fishing year. The measures proposed, including a mere 3-13% reduction in the catch limit, were notable largely for their failure to address the condition of the depleted cod stock. But there is an aspect of the proposed package that has received little attention, which is troubling, because it would have NMFS open up five of the six existing areas currently closed to groundfishing.